Aisle 228 by Sandra Marchetti
Aisle 228
by Sandra Marchetti
Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2023
Reivewed by Kathleen Kirk
EIL Poetry Editor
It’s baseball season, and I’m enjoying the baseball poems in Aisle 228, by Sandra Marchetti. It’s about baseball in general, the Cubs in particular, her father, who took her to games, and Aisle 228 at Wrigley Field, where they often sat. Sometimes a game is on the radio; sometimes, in a story someone told. And sometimes it’s 2016, the year the Cubs won the World Series! Indeed, the book is divided into Losers and Winners sections, with poems from the (108) years of not winning the Series, and poems of stellar moments, joy, and redemption. Here’s a short poem that captures what it’s like to root for the Cubs:
Being a Cub Fan
How many
minutes
of my life
have I spent
with hands
clasped,
hoping for one
to go out?
Sometimes a poem is about trying to get a radio signal; sometimes, about the loyalty of sticking it out for extra innings. Details of games, but also of post-game moments, like exiting the stadium in “Denouement”—“A dozen doors thwack open / dull as scrapped cups.” The poem “Relish” is a pun and a tribute to baseball food, the hot dog, the onions, the mustard (never ketchup!).
“Twilight” is a lovely father-daughter teaching moment, the speaker learning about the strike zone. It reminded me of batting practice with my brother on our acre of front lawn, in front of a thick old tree, now gone, struck by lightning…. There’s even a poem, “Invasive,” about a duck on the field, that teaches me about co-existence. And a couple of these poems remind me of the correct spelling of sports announcers’ names: Bob Uecker, Harry Caray.
What a charming book, even if you’re not a Cubs fan, or even a baseball fan. You want to know more about America’s pastime, don’t you? And, though from a particular address, “1060 W. Addison,” here’s a stanza for us all:
Our childhoods hang
like ghosts in the aisles
waiting on us
to ascend the stairs,
snatch, and wear them.
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